whoa....looks like a gppd one...read about Portland! this is scarier than the terrorists in a way

TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: We're going to look at a map of a city tonight, but not just any map, a map that shows the buildings, and the people, and everything about them. Why build a map like that? Well, like everything else seems to be these days, it's a weapon in the war against terrorism.

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There are thousands, actually probably tens of thousands, of people in this country trying to figure out what terrorists might try next. I'm not sure that many of them ever foresaw someone packing their sneakers with explosives and just walking onto a plane. But they are constantly coming up with new scenarios for disaster. Even Hollywood directors and writers were enlisted to try to come up with things that the government hadn't thought of. But you can't think of everything. I don't think very many people had ever thought that four planes could be hijacked simultaneously and then flown into buildings.

The purpose of thinking through disaster, of course, is to come up with ways to either stop it, or if that doesn't work, to respond. The trouble is, no one will ever really know if the response plans will work, until they are tested. And then it's too late. I don't remember which general said it, but a general said something along the lines of "No plan ever survives past the opening moment of a battle." But it is still essential to plan, and to plan in as detailed a manner as possible.

Tonight we're going to show you a new tool. The scientists at Los Alamos have developed a map of Portland, Oregon. They plan to map all of the cities eventually, but they started with Portland. It's a 3-D map, but it shows much more than just the buildings. It will also tell you, based on the census and demographic studies, what kind of people live or work in a given area, their income, their jobs. It can even give you a pretty good idea of what kind of person will be driving in a given car at rush hour. Using this map, and the word "map" just doesn't do it justice, they then run various terrorism scenarios, a cloud of anthrax here, a smallpox outbreak there, and believe that this will let them test their disaster-response plans in the most realistic way possible.

Sometimes in this business, we talk about the "gee-whiz" factor. There are stories that are significant, and there are stories that are just interesting, that show you something you haven't seen before. This is a significant and important tool, but it also has a pretty high "gee-whiz" component. It's just very cool.

So I hope everyone had a good holiday. I know there was no one else on the road this morning when I drove in to work, so I'm assuming that most of you are not back at work yet, but after a day of rest and relaxation, or fighting the crowds at the malls, we hope you'll join us tonight.

Wednesday, December 26, 2001

Leroy Sievers
Executive Producer
Nightline Offices
Washington, D.C.

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